PRECISION is an integrated project that addresses root and butt rot (RBR), the largest source of biomaterial and value loss in the primary production of the Norwegian forest sector. Even a small improvement in the information of the geographical location of RBR can lead to a very large financial gain for the forest sector.

PRECISION consists of a multidisciplinary research consortium spanning the fields of robotics and forest technology, remote sensing, pathology, silviculture, forest management planning, and economics. The consortium includes researchers from Norwegian research institutes and universities in partnership with leading international scientists. The industrial partners are an integral part of the project – the PRECISION industrial partners are responsible for more than 80% of the annual harvest in Norway’s forests.

PRECISION aims at improving the carbon footprint and hence the overall sustainability of the Norwegian forest sector. RBR has a negative impact on the carbon footprint of the forestry sector as it reduces tree growth, increases tree mortality, and reduces the yield of saw timber that can substitute building materials with long lifetimes.

Forest potential in the climate policy framework remains underutilized and significantly under-mobilized. Questions about the relative uncertainty surrounding the assessment of carbon content in soils and trees have been one problem. The introduction of strategies for encouraging climate friendly efforts on the part of landowners and other users of wood-based products represents another side of the problem. And finally, how forest carbon is accounted, and thus incentivised or not, in national, regional and international frameworks, represents a third problem. We address each of these at depth. We analyze national level strategies emerging in the context of the 2015 Paris Agreement and how these incentivise the role of forests and forest-based resources in the climate policy framework. Further, we analyze national level incentive systems for encouraging carbon friendly actions on the part of forest owners and consumers of harvested wood products. With this knowledge in hand, we consider new technologies and methods for the more accurate estimation of soil and tree carbon, from the national all the way down to the landowner level. Likewise, we investigate potential mitigation scenarios at the national and local level in three case studies (Netherlands, Romania and Sweden), analyzing response curves to economic and policy incentives. Finally, we analyze how international and regional climate change mitigation strategies can be better linked to subnational incentive systems. The goal is to promote methodologies that will provide a more accurate accounting of forest carbon, and permit the greater mobilization of forests and forest-based resources in national, regional and international climate policy frameworks.

HyperBio – using new technology to reduce costs and improve the accuracy of forestinventory mapping”

Terratec AS will conduct an exciting research project with funding from the Research Council of Norway in 2015 – 2018. Partners in the project are NMBU-MINA and Norwegian Computing Center. In addition, an Italian research institute with – Fondazione Edmund Mach in Trento. The aim of the project is to develop a forest mapping method that provides more accurate and efficient forest information based on airborne laser scanning (lidar) combined with hyperspectral imaging.